In the prior art, this kind of device is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 54-57759. In this invention, the transport path of a sheet of paper is inverted around an axis tilted by 45° relative to a traveling direction, so that the sheet moving on the transport path is inverted by 180° and the direction is changed by 90° relative to the traveling direction.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-134437, a sheet of paper is inverted at a point of a loop transport path around an axis along a transport direction.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-135851, an intermediate transport path is provided like conveyer belts which are a plurality of belts looped over a pair of rollers. On the intermediate transport paths, an inverting/refeeding roller is disposed so as to have an axial direction tilted by 45° relative to a transport direction. A plurality of auxiliary rollers are pressed in contact with the inverting/refeeding roller and inverting guides provided between the auxiliary rollers are disposed close to the outer surface of the inverting/refeeding roller with a small gap. A sheet of paper is transported on the intermediate transport path while being sucked by a suction fan. The sheet introduced between the inverting/refeeding roller and the auxiliary rollers is guided by the inverting guides so as to be turned along the outer surface of the inverting/refeeding roller, so that the traveling direction of the sheet is changed by 90°.